An overly sensitive heart is an unhappy possession on this shaky earth—Goethe I’ve run out of verbs on the shoulder of I-75. Semis barrel, no, blast, no, thunder past my blown-out Outback, the shimmy I ignored for thirst of home, tire that looked fine

Under the old redbud in the boulevard, sound umbrellas our heads, lifted as to thunder. Near oh near, they cry above us, and together, though deaf in their midst, we speak the names we have learned in lives brief and long. Cicada, says my granddaughter, given by her mother.